Education Commons^™

Narrative World Building: Creative Applications For Gamification In Study Abroad, Ashley Lear

Publications

This study examined a cohort of 12 study abroad participants taking a course on video game topography and narrative in Salamanca, Spain, to determine how inhabiting and co-creating narrative worlds as part of the coursework might impact the experiences of the students inside and outside of the classroom as they engaged in mandated and optional cultural engagement activities, such as museum tours and excursions to historical sites. Students completed two gameful learning activities: 1) they co-created their own narrative game world in a group game proposal assignment drawing upon research from storytelling through game environments, and 2) they created independent …

A Phenomenological Study Of Teachers' Experiences With Educational Gamification And Its Impact On Student Engagement In The Middle School Math And Science Classroom, Kimberly Rudd Parks

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand digital gamification and its effect on student engagement based on the lived experiences of middle school math and science teachers in rural schools in the southeast region of the United States. Nick Pelling’s gamification theory guided the study herein. Gamification theory served as a tool to alter learner engagement which impacted instruction and learning. I used a criterion-based purposeful selection of 10 middle school math and science teachers with gamification experience. Participating teachers had three or more years of teaching experience and taught in regional rural schools. The hermeneutical phenomenological study …

Discovering The Pedagogy And Secrets Of Gamification And Game-Based Learning Applied To The Music Theory Classroom, Jordan E. Montana Richards

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This research project aims to establish the credibility of gamification and game-based learning (GBL) in higher education and online education, specifically for applying digital game-based learning (DGBL) to the twenty-first-century music theory classroom. This research project aims to address the current Education Engagement Crisis, the historical need of engaging students, and adapting the music curriculum to the current technological age. This research project will propose an original digital game concept and framework for teaching music theory core skills and other areas of music-related study in higher education as its contribution to the field and research of music education and digital …

The Impact Of Cdio's Dimensions And Values On It Learner's Attitude And Behavior: A Regression Model Using Partial Least Squares, Ahmed Shuhaiber, Monther Aldwairi

All Works

CDIO (Conceiving-Designing-Implementing-Operating), crowdsourcing and gamification are gaining more popularity in IT education. However, factors that influence learners' attitude toward this method are yet to be discovered. Therefore, this study aims to develop and test a conceptual model of implementing CDIO-based curriculum in IT education. For this purpose, CDIO dimensions were conceptualized and developed into questionnaire items. Then 141 students who experienced the CDIO method in information security course and lab, were sampled through action-research approach to investigate their perceptions and experiences about the learning stages, dimensions and values of this teaching method. Data gathered were analyzed by multiple regression algorithm …

Making Music Theory Fun, Jordan E. Montana Richards

Masters Theses

This curriculum project will attempt to demonstrate how having fun can facilitate learning music theory. Furthermore, in this project, I also propose that using games, songs, mnemonic devices, and other types of wordplay and edutainment (the marriage of education and entertainment) can combat summer learning loss and other learning gaps or school breaks, in addition to inspiring the motivation, interest, and desire within students to learn. My curriculum project will also claim that by having fun and enjoying their learning, students will be more likely to improve and develop their musicianship skills. Within this curriculum project, I will attempt to …

Gamified Coding Platforms And Student Motivation: An Investigation Into Motivation And Academic Performance In Computer Programming Students, David C. Freer

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Students taking computer programming classes face several serious challenges: learning the syntax, problem solving, and interacting with new interfaces. In order to meet these challenges, instructors have been using Gamified Coding Platforms such as Codewars.com which offer students the opportunity to gain points, see other solutions, and practice in an online environment without the need to install extra software. The study seeks to build a psychological profile of students by measuring their intrinsic motivations along with their extrinsic motivations in the computer programming classroom. The surveys used for the intrinsic and extrinsic measures are based on the self-determination theory, which …

Debunking & Prebunking: Strategies For Librarians To Eradicate Misinformation, Evan Meszaros, Mandi Goodsett

Michael Schwartz Library Publications

No abstract provided.

Deciduous: Using Gamified Skill Trees And Mapping To Define Learning Opportunities For Students, Daniel Allen Burau

Masters Theses

Students can have difficulty visualizing the end goals of units of study and how one learned concept impacts another. They will benefit from seeing their progress toward completion and are motivated by how far they have come in their class. Progress in a course can be measured with the implementation of gamification tools. Gamification involves the integration of game frameworks into non-gaming areas. This research seeks to find how these and other gamification systems help increase student motivation or classroom performance. Elements of gaming are already found in some areas of education. Some schools have access to various tools to …

Game-Based Learning In Science: Can Video Games Simplify Organic Chemistry?, Rachel Israel

Senior Honors Theses

Organic chemistry has been taught in the same way for decades, and students still have difficulty understanding and comprehending the subject material. Perhaps it is time to change the methods by which this subject is taught. Video games have been successfully used in education to create learning environments that increase student motivation and engagement as well as challenge students and promote collaboration. It is difficult for students to maintain a growth mindset in organic chemistry within the classroom. However across different genres, video games create a unique environment where an individual is encouraged to try again when they fail. This …

Effective Gamification Within Educational Virtual Reality Environments, Adrian Pilkington

Honors Theses

With the advent and now widespread use of mobile phones and computers in educational settings, exploring effective and new ways of using technology in the classroom is important for educating the next generation of students. Innovative technology, like Virtual Reality, has started being discussed and researched for its potential benefits in educational settings. This paper presents a brief history of VR, game theory, and examines two VR educational games from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Nursing’s (UNMC) Senior Design teams. The two games will be used to replace lecture-style classes and to go out and educate the community. We …

You Can't Lose A Game If You Don't Play The Game: Exploring The Ethics Of Gamification In Education, Dympna O'Sullivan, Ioannis Stavrakakis, Damian Gordon, Andrea Curley, Brendan Tierney, Emma Murphy, Michael Collins, Anna Becevel

Articles

Gamification has been hailed as a meaningful solution to the perennial challenge of sustaining student attention in class. It uses facets of gameplay in an educational context, including things such as points, leaderboards and badges. These are clearly efforts to make the student experience more entertaining and engaging, but nonetheless, they are also clearly digital nudges and attempts to change the students’ behaviours and attitudes to a specific set of concepts, and in which case they must, and should, be subject to the same ethical scrutiny as any other form of persuasion technique, as they may be unintentionally eroding the …

Xiphias: Using A Multidimensional Approach Towards Creating Meaningful Gamification-Based Badge Mechanics, Jonathan D.L Casano, Jenilyn L. Agapito, Nicole Ann F. Tolosa

Department of Information Systems & Computer Science Faculty Publications

This paper shows the design and initial testing of three new Xiphias Badges --Presence; Mastery; and Antifragility – based on the merging of the salient features from James Clear’s Behavior Change model (2016); Johann Hari’s Lost Connections model (2018); and Jordan Peterson’s recent interpretation of the Big Five model of Personality Traits (2007). This multidimensional approach is an attempt to cater to the multidimensionality of a user and aims to be a more universal gamification approach that taps into internal motivations. The badge mechanics were tested on 69 undergraduate students using a Low-Fidelity Gamified Tracker. The results of a survey …

Why Don’T You Play The Game? Evaluating The Use Of Gamification In An Undergraduate Finance Course, Alfonso Miguel N. Sevidal

Finance and Accounting Faculty Publications

The board game Monopoly is used as a gamification tool in an undergraduate finance course in a private business school in the Philippines. The use of Monopoly as a gamification tool is evaluated using Han’s (2015) adaptation of the spiral curriculum and Landers's (2015) theory of gamified learning. According to Han, the spiral curriculum “is the circular model best suited to gamification as pedagogy because it allows students to learn and practice basic skills in order to master advanced tasks.” Meanwhile, Landers’s theory of gamified learning posits that “gamification affects learning via moderation when an instructional designer intends to encourage …

I Told You That To Tell You This: Metagaming And Metacognition In The Hybrid Classroom, Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

This paper theorizes the use of play and gamified methods to foster metacognition, or strategies for learning and learning about learning, in online graduate instruction. In the process, it calls into question the determinism of “serious” games as being the only means of facilitating metacognition. Ultimately, by adopting metagame approaches—that is, approaches based on0 goals and achievements that are external to the game and/or are developed by the players themselves—metacognition can and does occur because students participate in the development of the rewards. Moreover, any metagame feature ultimately becomes a commentary so that an approach based on metagaming offers its …

Gamification Strategies For Music Educators: An Online Continuing Education Course, Luis Enrique Espinosa

Masters Theses

This curriculum project is designed to provide music educators in the public and private sector with introductory knowledge about the topic of gamification and game-based learning, framed within the scope of an online continuing education course. It is meant for adult learners who teach young musicians in the K-12 range. The course offers a set of strategies and step-based processes that help transform a traditional music lesson plan into an interactive and meaningful learning experience that leverages games. The games created by the students in the course can serve to motivate music students by incorporating a sense of competition and …

Challenge, Fantasy, And Curiosity: Activating Students' Intrinsic Motivation Within Information Literacy Sessions, Brandon West, Alan Witt

Milne Library

Student engagement is a consistent challenge for librarians in information literacy instruction, especially in the context of single session learning. Two librarians at a small, public liberal arts college took inspiration from Malone’s (1981) theory of intrinsically motivating instruction to create a lesson plan that caught the imagination of the students and produced enthusiastic participation. This paper explains the theoretical framework used, examines the reasons for its success in this iteration, and discusses potential applications to other information literacy lessons.

Homo Ludens Moralis: Designing And Developing A Board Game To Teach Ethics For Ict Education, Damian Gordon, Dympna O'Sullivan, Ioannis Stavrakakis, Andrea Curley

Conference papers

The ICT ethical landscape is changing at an astonishing rate, as technologies become more complex, and people choose to interact with them in new and distinct ways, the resultant interactions are more novel and less easy to categorise using traditional ethical frameworks. It is vitally important that the developers of these technologies do not live in an ethical vacuum; that they think about the uses and abuses of their creations, and take some measures to prevent others being harmed by their work.

To equip these developers to rise to this challenge and to create a positive future for the use …

The Mystery Room: Discovering The Flexibility Of An Information Literacy-Based Educational Escape Room, Glenn Koelling, Alyssa Russo

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

The Mystery Room is an educational escape room based on information literacy and applied to multiple audiences, including first-year students and library student employees. In this article, we explain how we developed the game, its theoretical underpinnings, and why it’s a flexible workshop for a variety of audiences.

Proceedings Of The Cuny Games Conference 6.0, Robert O. Duncan, Joseph Bisz, Christina Boyle, Kathleen Offenholley, Maura A. Smale, Carolyn Stallard, Deborah Sturm

Publications and Research

The CUNY Games Network is an organization dedicated to encouraging research, scholarship and teaching in the developing field of games-based learning. We connect educators from every campus and discipline at CUNY and beyond who are interested in digital and non-digital games, simulations, and other forms of interactive teaching and inquiry-based learning. These proceedings summarize the CUNY Games Conference 6.0, where scholars shared research findings at a three-day event to promote and discuss game-based pedagogy in higher education. Presenters could share findings in oral presentations, posters, demos, or play testing sessions. The conference also included workshops on how to modify existing …

Chopped Id: Students Engaged In Gamification To Enhance Advanced Instructional Design Techniques, John Baaki, Tian Luo

STEMPS Faculty Publications

The Food Network's television show Chopped pits chefs against each other, in a three-round battle, to create their best appetizer, entrée, and dessert. Facing master chef judges, the chef participants present their dishes with one chef chopped (eliminated) after each round. The last chef standing is crowned the Chopped Champion. A faculty member in an instructional design and technology program, created Chopped ID, an innovative adaptation and gamification of the Food Network's Chopped for application in a distance learning environment. Participating as competitors and judges, graduate students, firsthand, experienced gamification as an advanced instructional design technique. In the end, Chopped …

Gamification Of The Classroom: Seeking To Improve Student Learning And Engagement, Kyle Iverson

Master's Theses & Capstone Projects

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to find how gamification of the classroom would affect middle school students in a northern suburban school district in Minnesota. This work was designed to find if student proficiency would increase because of gamification and if students would become engaged with the classroom material due to its implementation. Using three classes taught in this new setting and two classes taught in the standard of past years, test scores were measured and studied to find significant changes along with a survey to the gamified classes about their experience regarding engagement. The study found that …

Level Up The One-Shot: Empowering Students With Backward Design And Game-Based Learning, Tarida Anantachai, Camille Chesley

Libraries' and Librarians' Publications

This chapter outlines some of the ways in which the integration of games and gamified activities directly impact student motivation in the classroom. It discusses how games naturally align with the principles of both motivational design and backward design and offers an overview of some of the free and open source options that can assist instruction librarians in creating their first games. It also includes examples of games that the authors have themselves created and tools that they have customized to enrich student engagement in one-shot instruction sessions.

Use Of Virtual Games For Interactive Learning In A Pharmacy Curriculum, Jerika Lam, Mary Gutierrez, Jeff A. Goad, Larisa Odessky, Jason Bock

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Background and purpose: To evaluate student pharmacists’ attitudes and satisfaction toward playing educational virtual games in the classroom.

Educational activity and setting: The study setting was playing virtual games in the classroom setting. First year student pharmacists participated in two Mimycx quests in the Healthcare Communication and the Psychiatry/Neurology courses. Students were randomly assigned into teams and worked together to complete the assigned quest games. Completion of the pre- and post-quest questionnaires via Qualtrics was voluntary.

Findings: A total of 79 student pharmacists played the Mimycx quests. Only 66 students completed both pre- and post-quest questionnaires. Students …

Effectiveness Of Gamification Activities In A Project-Based Learning Classroom, Eleanor Leung, Elizabeth Pluskwik

Integrated Engineering Department Publications

The purpose of this research is to analyze the effectiveness, and student's self-reported engagement with gamification tools on a student's learning of technical concepts when used in a project-based learning (PBL) engineering classroom environment. Gamification, as defined in this study, is the use of game-based elements such as online audience response systems with automated feedback in non-game situations. By adding gamification to the classroom, we hope to further build on the active and collaborative learning environment that our PBL program already provides. Five gamification activities were implemented during the Fall 2017 semester with junior and senior student engineers enrolled in …

Incorporating Diegetic Elements To Increase Engagement In Games For Engineering Education, Katherine Smith, Yuzhong Shen, Anthony W. Dean

VMASC Publications

One of the difficulties in developing educational games is maintaining player engagement. This engagement is critical for games to provide effective learning experiences. One way to increase engagement in games is to limit interruptions during game play. In educational games, this can be accomplished by incorporating learning or problem-solving elements diegetically. Diegetic elements are those that are part of the game scene. With this in mind, a series of games for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education has been developed focusing on content in courses that are prerequisites to the engineering curriculum. These games cover topics in pre-calculus, calculus, …

Making The Connection: Using Mobile Devices And Polleverywhere For Experiential Learning For Adult Students, Robert L. Moore, Stephanie J. Blackmon, James Markham

STEMPS Faculty Publications

Technology integration has significantly influenced the way students access and retain knowledge gained in the classroom (Ahmed, 2016). This is particularly relevant in classrooms for adult learners who engage in continuing education. This paper used a descriptive case study (Yin, 2014) to share how an instructor utilized mobile learning with a web-based polling tool, PollEverywhere, to gamify experiential learning for adult students in various roles within a southeastern state’s court administration—prosecutors, defense lawyers, magistrates, and jail administrators—and improve students’ engagement in the course and connection to course material.

Designing An Intervention For Novice Programmers Based On Meaningful Gamification: An Expert Evaluation, Jenilyn L. Agapito, Ma. Mercedes T. Rodrigo

Department of Information Systems & Computer Science Faculty Publications

Gamification is defined as the addition of game-like elements and mechanics to non-game contexts to encourage certain desired behaviors. It is becoming a popular classroom intervention used in computer science instruction, including CS1, the first course computer science students take. It is being operationalized to enhance students' learning experience and achievement. However, existing studies have mostly implemented reward-based game elements which have resulted to contrasting behaviors among the students. Meaningful gamification, characterized as the use of game design elements to encourage users build internal motivation to behave in a certain way, is contended to be a more effective approach. The …

The Effect Of Gamification On Elementary Students’ Spanish Language Achievement And Academic Self-Efficacy, Jason Rachels

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

A quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest, non-equivalent control group design was used to examine the effect of gamification on third and fourth grade students’ Spanish language achievement and student academic self-efficacy. In this study, the primary means of incorporating gamification into the experimental group’s Spanish language instruction was through the use of Duolingo®, a computer and mobile app that uses gamification and adaptive learning technology to teach foreign languages. Students in the control group received their regularly scheduled English L1/Spanish L2 class learning activities. The study was 12 weeks in duration. Students were assessed with a 50 question, multiple-choice English to Spanish and …

The Effect Of Gamification On Elementary Students’ Spanish Language Achievement And Academic Self-Efficacy, Jason Rachels

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

A quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest, non-equivalent control group design was used to examine the effect of gamification on third and fourth grade students’ Spanish language achievement and student academic self-efficacy. In this study, the primary means of incorporating gamification into the experimental group’s Spanish language instruction was through the use of Duolingo®, a computer and mobile app that uses gamification and adaptive learning technology to teach foreign languages. Students in the control group received their regularly scheduled English L1/Spanish L2 class learning activities. The study was 12 weeks in duration. Students were assessed with a 50 question, multiple-choice English to Spanish and …

An Evaluation Of Gamification To Assess Students’ Learning On Their Understanding Of First Year Computer Science Programming Module, Daniel Gebremichael

Dissertations

This research examines the use of gamification to develop an assessment tool, to assess students’ learning of a first year computer science module. The students’ undertaking of the first semester Programming and Algorithms module in 2015 were assessed on their knowledge of the programming language Python. The incorporation of gamification when assessing students can have various potential benefits. The research aims to identify these benefits and issues. Assessments and games have almost opposite effects on opinions on people, as games are usually expected to have an entertainment value but this is not the case for assessments. The research examines if …